[ Dickens / Barnaby Rudge ]
Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870) is of course one of the giants of British Literature, a hugely popular novelist and short-story writer in his day, now probably best known for "A Christmas Carol" and novels such as Bleak House, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and others. Dickens was also editor and owner of two popular magazines at different points.
Dickens was also a great lover of dogs, and owned at least two Newfoundlands in his lifetime.
The work's only reference to Newfoundlands occurs in the Preface, in which Dickens — a great dog-lover who himself owned two Newfoundlands — offers some anecdotes concerning two ravens which he had owned (the title character in this novel has a pet raven). Writing of one of his ravens, Dickens remarks that the bird
slept in a stable — generally on horseback — and so terrified a Newfoundland dog by his preternatural sagacity, that he has been known, by the mere superiority of his genius, to walk off unmolested with the dog's dinner, from before his face.
See also this brief note regarding Dickens and Newfies here at The Cultured Newf.